Article: Quebec culture of Celine Dion

[Bellamy]

A flurry of songbirds

Quebec has a long tradition of celebrated chanteuses - from 1940s star Alys Roby to Ginette Reno to Celine Dion - but the richness of today's bevy is absolutely dizzying

 

JUAN RODRIGUEZ

The Gazette

 

May 28, 2005

 

 

What has the culture of Celine Dion and Star Academie, of Notre-Dame de Paris and Echos Vedettes and La Fureur, wrought? A local music industry aflutter with the sounds of female songbirds.

 

They're heard all over big radio chains like Radio Energie and RockDetente, and they sell in every gas mart in the province. Yet these singers get, at best, grudging respect from the critics - and, of course, none from eggheads. They're considered mortal enemies by alternative-rock fans who accuse them of monopolizing the airwaves.

 

Take, for example, the province's recent No. 1 album, Non negociable by Marie-Chantal Toupin, the bombastic biker blond. "Not a great disc, but an effective album," sniffed Alexandre Vigneault of La Presse. "None of the lyricists here have done a job worthy of the Prix de l'Academie Charles Cross ... but the writing is generally better (than earlier efforts)." At least that verdict was more, um, diplomatic than his take on Lynda Lemay's latest soul-searching outpouring, Un paradis quelque part, which he called "ruined by too many banalities."

 

Then again, Catherine Durand's latest album, Diaporama, drew a rhapsodic response from Sylvain Cormier of the intellectual Le Devoir: "It's the album I will bring with me without hesitation on the road this summer and all summers to follow."

 

Of course, it all depends on whom you read: the tabloid press (from Le Journal de Montreal to Echos Vedettes) tends to use the same smiley-face phrases interchangeably for almost anyone who springs for a media launch at a local hot spot. Unflinching self-promotion has always been the mother's milk of Quebec show biz.

 

While the sheer plethora of chanteuses seems unprecedented, it's a firm part of the culture. Thus the current fascination with Alys Roby (the first Quebecoise to attract Hollywood's attention, in the 1940s) and the longevity of Ginette Reno (the first to perform for Johnny Carson), and, finally, the Las Vegas-based industry that is Celine Dion. It's the sort of torch-passing that the Montreal Canadiens - an organization that was once a principal standard-bearer of Quebec culture - carried out from Maurice Richard to Jean Beliveau to Guy Lafleur.

 

Today's stampede of songbirds follows in the footsteps of Celine's most successful heir, Marie-Elaine Thibert, the Academie alum who's sold 300,000 copies of her eponymous debut - which was tops in Quebec in 2004 - and who won a Felix as best female singer at last year's ADISQ gala. Thibert, who also plays violin, is hosting two Carte Blanche soirees at Salle Wilfrid Pelletier of Place des Arts during the FrancoFolies Festival in July.

 

And right at her heels, taking over Toupin's top spot on the charts, is 14-year-old Marilou, who's debut album - titled, simply, La fille qui chante - has been feeding Quebec's longtime fascination with child stars.

 

The climate is so ripe for songbirds that this month Patsy Gallant - "notre reine du disco," who transformed Gilles Vigneault's patriotic anthem Mon pays c'est l'hiver into the jaunty From New York to L.A. in the mid '70s - staged a comeback with a CD-DVD retrospective wistfully titled Tout va trop vite.

 

None of the wannabes quite have the pipes of Celine, but who does? (Incidentally, Dion's last French-language album, 1 fille & 4 types, is much more relaxed and intimate than her "Diva Las Vegas" fare and can be a critic's guilty pleasure.)

 

Think they all sound the same? Think again, but not too hard, OK? We've broken down the distinguishing features of a cool dozen Quebec songbirds with their recent albums.

 

http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/media.canada.com/idl/mtgz/20050528/129923-44691.jpg

CREDIT: DAVE SIDAWAY, THE GAZETTE

Songster Marie-Chantal Toupin acknowledges her major influence and the doyenne of Quebec chanteuses, Celine Dion. Toupin's disc Non negociable hit No. 1 on the Quebec charts but was, as is typical for the province's Dion-style divas, only tepidly received by critics.

Source: http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgaz...a1-3b31f77f04b2

[Mozinha]

These singers grew up with Céline, they all saw the way she worked hard and how she finally achieved sucess and they all wanna try their chances out there.

 

Truth is that none of them really have a great amazing voice like Céline's voice and that's what makes her differente from all the others. She is trully special, not only a singer but also a great artist overall. That's why no one of these ladies will ever equal Céline.